After a flight that seemed to be incredibly quick and last forever, I arrived in Reykjavik during the early morning of December 3. It seemed very much like the middle of the night- due to my body clock registering as 3:30am but also due to the lack of a sunrise while I was driven through the city at 8:30am to my final destination, SIM Residency. Below is a pic, as the driver wizzed by it heading into downtown, of the infamous Hallgrímskirkja Church that is on every postcard for Reykjavik.

Hallgrímskirkja

I finally got some shut-eye once arriving at the apartment, finding my room and settling in. I woke up later to realize that I had slept through half of the day's daylight and urgently got myself together to go out and find groceries while it was still daylight (as I had found street signs hard to read in the night- perhaps because of my bleary, tired eyes, or maybe because they are just simply hard to read). I went to the Bonus market where I found the city folk to be much different than the Skagastrond folks I encountered a few years ago when I did a residency at the north end of the island. I was literally pushed through the store by folks behind shopping carts. They don't stop for you as you try and decipher food labels and as a result, I bought what I now find out to be translated as "fun milk"- which is a very disgustingly sweet and thin version of milk. Needless to say, I will go back to the store to buy different milk- and hopefully not form a version of grocery shopping PTSD.

Today- I am settling into the studio and flushing out some goals for the upcoming few weeks here- while also trying to disconnect from answering work emails or being tied to watching cat videos all day long. Sidenote: there is a shirt at the nearby Aurora Borealis Museum that is decked out with cats floating in a sky of Northern Lights. Am I that girl?

Ending with some shots taken around the 'hood (click the pics to go forward- it's a gallery of images)...

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What began as a daily blog reflecting on my SIM Artist Residency in December 2016, became a weekly reflection of my studio practice and work- both personally and artistically. I make every effort to post new posts by Sunday evening.